#15: Favourite male character

I like Will from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, mostly because his coming of age happens while he is also learning that he's going to have to become the hero of his situation.

I also think Rincewind is a great asset to Terry Pratchett's Discworld, an anti-hero if you will. Trouble always finds him and he always manages to squirm out of it in hilariously unlikely ways. Also, he owns the Luggage.

But I think I will opt for Christopher from Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I mean, Christopher John Francis Boone. Haddon writes him so well and there is so much more empathy for this savant character than I would have thought possible in such a deceptively simple book.

The part that always makes me cry is when Christopher's dad holds out his palm to say sorry and Christopher doesn't touch it because he has become afraid of the one person he thought he could trust.

The part that always makes me laugh is, after a section where he explains that he hates brown things but loves red things he is talking to Mrs Alexander, a neighbour, who is walking her dog Ivor:

“Mrs Alexander didn’t say anything. She walked to the little red box on a pole next to the gate to the park and she put Ivor’s poo into the box, which was a brown thing inside a red thing, which made my head feel funny so I didn’t look. Then she walked back to me.”

I'm quite surprised at what today's meme evoked.

Day 16 – Favourite female character
Day 17 – Favourite quote from your favourite book
Day 18 – A book that disappointed you
Day 19 – Favourite book turned into a movie
Day 20 – Favourite romance book
Day 21 – Favourite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favourite book you own
Day 23 – A book you've wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favourite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your favourite book of all time

I'd like to thank Sarah Jansen for her tweet about this, as well as The Literary Gothamite and Confessions of a Book Lush for the good idea.